And the Fat Jokes Have Started

At this point I’m really scared to hear what the late-night shows and the Interwebs will dredge up in terms of “comedy” responses.

Lots of discussion about the inevitable fat jokes followed that, and Richard Roeper — yes, as many of us have been saying, THAT Richard Roeper — even wrote about our automatic leap to that assumption. Hard to say whether he thought that specific part was paranoid or merely sad.

Unfortunately, turns out what it was is prescient.

I’m going to cut here, because the “satire” piece I’m about to link to is a fucking vile exploitation of this tragedy, and you might want to avoid it. But I want a record of it here as an example of just how HI-LARIOUS some people think a bunch of brutally murdered fat women are.

That’s this fuckstick’s headline. It goes on a bit about the body bags in mock press-release style, but then we get to the real point:

“With our innovative line of new products for the morbidly obese, we aim to make people as comfortable as possible no matter how fat they become. We actually manufacture [sic] novelty sized 12x shirts and slacks, as a joke, only to see sales skyrocket. It almost seems as though we can’t manufacture an outfit big enough, that someone won’t actually fit into. ‘Free to be me’, that is the Lane Bryant promise.”

Ah, see, it’s funny how fat people need clothes! I mean, it’s like they think they should have the same right to cover their naked bodies as thin people! Next thing you know, they’re going to want to be allowed to eat in restaurants! NO MATTER HOW BIG THEY GET!

And those five women who were murdered? Well, what were they doing in a plus-size store in the first place? If they’d just learned to put down the donuts and hit the gym, they could have been in Forever 21 instead of a store that ludicrously chooses to cater to a significant demographic. (As if it’s just a perfectly NORMAL thing for fat women to want clothes!) As always, whatever befalls a fatty is ultimately the fatty’s fault.

And as always, whatever befalls a fatty is ultimately funny to some fucking asshole. Even being the victim of a mass murder.

You know what the worst part is? There probably is a real need for more plus-size body bags. And it is not remotely funny.

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102 thoughts on “And the Fat Jokes Have Started”

Oh, har-dee-fucking-HAR. Those who were surprised that someone would try to capitalize on this tragedy because said someone’s sense of humor is dependent on the humiliation and degradation of others? Can sip on this for a while. Man, if people didn’t think the fat community is in danger, maybe this will convince them. This is absolutely disturbing, dysfunctional, and not acceptable in polite society. It’s times like these when I really would prefer not to be able to say “I told you so.”

This is beyond unspeakable, but unfortunately not too unexpected. I am so sorry for these women & their families & so sickened by the reminder of how deep the hatred goes & how ignorant & cruel some people are.

In the other comments on this situation, someone said that we should not compare ourselves to blacks or Jews because things are not that bad for us. Oh, yes, they are, & getting worse every day. The medical community & the drug companies are so anxious to profit off us &/or be rid of us that they do not mind at all killing some of us off & destroying the health of many more with drugs & surgeries & all the attendant side effects. And people are harassed every day, as well as beaten, raped, sometimes shot or stabbed…yes, some people have been murdered for no other reason than that they are fat. And others, adolescents in particular, attempt or succeed at committing suicide in order to escape the abuse. We are indeed fighting a civil rights battle & we are often fighting for not only respect, access, acceptance, but for our very lives, as well as for body autonomy, the right to own our own bodies & live in them as we please.

I have to admit, I thought the possibility of someone being this vile about the store shooting was remote. But unfortunately, you were all right and I was wrong. Every time I think I sort of understand the callous depths to which our society has sunk, someone achieves a new low.

Words fail me. Words, that is, offensive enough to string together in an insult that does sufficient justice to this colossal wanker. Fortunately I’m a great believer in instant karma. Put enough ugly, hateful and stupid out there and eventually it’ll come right back and bury its teeth in your arse.

Hey, you know, people aren’t inclined to react to anti-fat stuff as “hate speech”, but maybe we should start pressing them on that? Here’s from Google AdSense’s policies:

5. Prohibited Uses. You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) directly or indirectly generate queries, Referral Events, or impressions of or clicks on any Ad, Link, Search Result, or Referral Button through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks, the use of robots or other automated query tools and/or computer generated search requests, and/or the unauthorized use of other search engine optimization services and/or software; (ii) edit, modify, filter or change the order of the information contained in any Ad, Link, Ad Unit, Search Result, or Referral Button, or remove, obscure or minimize any Ad, Link, Ad Unit, Search Result, or Referral Button in any way; (iii) frame, minimize, remove or otherwise inhibit the full and complete display of any Web page accessed by an end user after clicking on any part of an Ad (“Advertiser Page”), any Search Results Page, or any Referral Page; (iv) redirect an end user away from any Advertiser Page, Search Results Page, or Referral Page; provide a version of the Advertiser Page, Search Results Page, or Referral Page that is different from the page an end user would access by going directly to the Advertiser Page, Search Results Page, or Referral Page; intersperse any content between the Ad and the Advertiser Page, between the page containing the Search Box and the Search Results Page, or between the Referral Button and the Referral Page; or otherwise provide anything other than a direct link from an Ad to an Advertiser Page, from the page containing the Search Box to the Search Results Page, or from the Referral Button to the Referral Page; (v) display any Ad(s), Link(s), or Referral Button(s) on any error page, on any registration or “thank you” page (e.g., a page that thanks a user after he/she has registered with the applicable Web site), on any chat page, in any email, or on any Web page or any Web site that contains any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content; (vi) directly or indirectly access, launch, and/or activate Ads, Links, Search Results, or Referral Buttons through or from, or otherwise incorporate the Ads, Links, Search Results, or Referral Buttons in, any software application, Web site, or other means other than Your Site(s), and then only to the extent expressly permitted by this Agreement (e.g., while Search Results may be indirectly accessed from Your Site(s), they may only be displayed on the appropriate Google-hosted Web page); (vii) “crawl”, “spider”, index or in any non-transitory manner store or cache information obtained from any Ads, Links, Search Results, or Referral Events, or any part, copy, or derivative thereto; (viii) act in any way that violates any Program Policies posted on the Google Web Site, as may be revised from time to time, or any other agreement between You and Google (including without limitation the Google AdWords program terms), or engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill. You acknowledge that any attempted participation or violation of any of the foregoing is a material breach of this Agreement and that we may pursue any and all applicable legal and equitable remedies against You, including an immediate suspension of Your account or termination of this Agreement, and the pursuit of all available civil or criminal remedies.

From their policies section:

Sites displaying Google ads may not include
Violent content, racial intolerance, or advocacy against any individual, group, or organization

You can also extract the domain name of the sites whose ads get served by right-clicking on them, selecting “Copy Shortcut”, pasting into Notepad, and finding the URL in the mishmash (don’t actually click on them… that’s money in the bank for this guy.) For instance, Woman Within is the one I’m seeing now. I found their site and they have a handy contact form: https://www.womanwithin.com/ContactUs/ContactUs.aspx

Why not contact the “sponsors” and let them know their ads are showing up on a site that’s 1) tastelss and 2) anti-plus-size-shopping? Advertisers opting out of showing on that site or even complaining to Google might have some results.

Ohhhhh and if anybody wants to feel truly vindictive like I do because I just found out he’s got at least TWO articles about the tragic shooting at my local mall this past holiday season, he’s also got articles that are less “ambiguously” hateful because they hit race and other recognized protected classes and they all have Google Adsense boxes on them.

No, no… the “buy advertising” program is GoogleAdwords. Adwords customers buy space on Adsense sites. Trust me, I researched this… this is one reason why I replaced the Adsense boxes on my page with Project Wonderful (the other being I was sick to fucking death of Ann Coulter scaring my readers and other such cognitive dissonance matchups.)

I knew this would happen from the moment I read the first news article and came across the bit about the empty stretchers being rolled out (because the victims were dead and beyond the help of paramedics). My brain immediately filled in the “jokes” possible in this heartbreaking visual.

Apparently you can’t set the bar too low for people to crawl underneath.

Yeah. I also told Google about his article about Kanye West’s mother filled with racially charged language and the pornographic pictures he uses to illustrate his Alltel articles, as those are much more clearly “slam dunks”. I don’t know if that will hurt, help or not affect the case against the Lane Bryant article, but maybe somebody at Google will just decide the site is too problematic to participate in their program.

Anyway, I figure it’s worth calling on… maybe it won’t do anything this time but if they start to consistently get complaints about fat hate speech, they might be forced to recognize a pattern.

Mochi Hada: I Am So Not A Lawyer, but I believe he’d be protected from legal repercussions, yes. I think the best thing to do is target him financially, by reporting violations of the Google AdSense policies and letting sponsors on his page know.

When I heard about this story, I was actually waiting for the jokes to come. I had this sinking feeling in my heart and gut that there was some fat hatred behind the shooting itself, and then I figured it would only be a matter of time before someone would pounce on the fact the the people shopping at the site of the shooting were at the “fat girls’ clothing store, hardee har har.”

I can’t wait until they catch the person, and they give the reson for it in the press. What will it be? A hatred of fat women? His mother was fat? Or her mother? The press will have a field say with it.

Ugh. I saw this yesterday and I was going to comment on his blog but decided it wasn’t worth my time.

Lane Bryant could file a DMCA takedown notice with his web host, since he is using copyrighted logos and such. But this might very well fall under “satire,” so who knows. I don’t know the laws very well but he is clearly using copyrighted logos without permission.

When they catch the person, the reason the press will give is a failed relationship (perhaps with one of the victims) or a robbery gone wrong. The “fat people are bad” bit will be saved for the defense–any group of 12 Suburban-Americans is going to have a least one devout hater of fat people.

It seems pretty obvious that this particular cheesedick gets his jollies from people paying attention to him. Like an ill-behaved two-year-old, he’ll stomp and scream and throw his cream of wheat in mommy’s face to get even a scrap of someone’s interest for half of a second.

It’s just sad that he didn’t happen to grow out of it. I’m not going to go read any blog with a title of ‘ohpleasegodno’, because I immediately know that the author is going to be average age of 20-22, single, and probably plays WoW on a PVP server. Sorry. Not interested.

“In the other comments on this situation, someone said that we should not compare ourselves to blacks or Jews because things are not that bad for us. Oh, yes, they are, & getting worse every day.”

I’m sorry, I have to comment on this. No, they’re not. There are no organized government run camps dedicated to killing fat people. Fat people have the same right to vote as everyone else in the US, Canada, etc. Fat people are not denied citizenship in the country of their birth (as is the case for Jews born in many places in Eastern Europe, even if their families have lived there for generations.) There’s no history of enslaving fat people. Fat people don’t have crosses burned on their front lawn. They have never been sent to separate schools. There aren’t separate water fountains for fat people, nor are there laws forcing them to the back of the bus. They are not forced to live in ghettos, nor are there widely believed lies that fat people drink the blood of human children. No one blames fat people for all the violence in the world, or supports people who blow up fat people’s children.
So no, the situation for fat people right now is not as bad as things have historically been for blacks or Jews, or say, Asian Americans during WWII. Are things perfect? Not by a long shot. Everyone should be able to get good medical care regardless of their weight, weight should not be a consideration for getting a job, etc. But fat people are not suffering the sort of widespread discrimination that was suffered by other groups in history, and to claim the opposite not only weakens your argument, but also makes light of the suffering of those in other groups.
(Sorry for the off topic comment, I’m just uncomfortable letting claims like that stand. As for the shooting, I agree that the joke was tasteless and beyond out of line, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the victim’s families.)

Totally right, Emily. On the whole I think it’s not very useful to say that one oppression is worse than another, but there can be some utility in making analogies for clarity or to show the extent of something’s seriousness. But there are circumstances in which the analogy is downright insulting. Comparing even widespread shame and hatred to Jim Crow or the Holocaust is unfair and callous. I think that in certain situations, like with the Mississippi bill, it is absolutely fair to point out when something is stepping into oppressive territory that we’ve been in before — those who don’t know the past, etc. But that’s not the same as implying that we’re suffering systematic human rights violations or genocide.

And we don’t have to be suffering systematic human rights violations or genocide to want and fight for social justice. There’s no need to catastrophize.

I’m sorry, I have to comment on this. No, they’re not. There are no organized government run camps dedicated to killing fat people.

Not yet. And as a Jew who had cousins who survived N*z* imprisonment, I’d like to keep it that way. There were no “death camps” for Jews in 1908, either. But if you look at how Jews were portrayed in media 100 years ago (especially in Europe), the similarity to how fat people are portrayed now is eerie. You look back and you think, “What could they have done that was so bad they deserved that?” and the charges were right there — greedy, resource-sucking, ugly pigs who stubbornly refused to “convert” and fit in. I’m absolutely NOT convinced it couldn’t happen again.

Sorry if you think I overstated things. But things are going from bad to worse for fat people in this culture. They are trying to control our children, they want to control what we buy in stores (I understand in England that they are at least considering having people roam the aisles looking into people’s carts, telling them that they are buying the wrong foods), children are taken from good parents who are charged with neglect because the children are fat, & at least some people have suggested more than once rounding us up & putting us in internment camps. We are certainly heading in a very frightening direction, as that attempt at passing ridiculous legislation indicates. And we are about the only group whom most people consider it alright to ridicule.

I was taking care of my granddaughter today & we watched some cartoons. I noticed that in at least one, Johnny Test, the bad fat puns & reinforcement of stereotypes ran rampant. And there was some of same in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants she was watching this afternoon (not my choice, her parents allow her to watch this crap.)

As has been said before by many people, those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. And just because a lot of the oppression & discrimination aimed at us is passed off as being ‘for our own good’ does not make it less dangerous.

There is every need to fight for social justice. And if we do not take it seriously enough, things will only get worse. And I would say that people dying because of drugs & surgery which are unnecessary or some committing suicide because they cannot stand the abuse to which they are subjected any longer or being physically, emotionally, psychologically, & sometimes sexually abused is bad enough.

Is there a Holocaust yet? No. However, this IS about civil rights, & one of the biggest differences I can think of is that I guarantee you that there were not many black people who actually agreed with their oppressors & believed that they deserved to be second-class citizens, but it seems as if a majority of fat people buy the sales pitch whole & believe that they are disgusting, ugly, lazy, gluttonous slobs who just need to find some willpower & shape up & that they deserve what they get & that those who abuse them are only trying to help. That kind of attitude & that attitude of most, including many who say they are part of fat activism, that things are not “that bad’ is the biggest reason why fat prejudice & discrimination may last for many more years, certainly well beyond the end of my life.

No, we have not yet been subjected to anything on a society-wide basis as bad as slavery or the Holocaust. But the culture’s attitudes toward & treatment of fat people is disgraceful, even moreso since most of it is only motivated by money. And one of the first people I ever knew to draw the comparison was actually a Jewish friend of mine, who mentioned that many things which are going on here & in Great Britain are very similar to the way things started in the early days of Hitler’s rule.

And to borrow an idea from Frederick Douglass, I would like to remind us all that we will be oppressed exactly as much as we ALLOW ourselves to be oppressed. That is why I state firmly that I am for full rights, freedom, access for EVERYONE, for body autonomy, for our rights to live as we please & own our own bodies, & I don’t want to ‘play nice’ with the bigots or settle for anything less.

This dickhead whom you are all discussing is far from the only one of his kind, & some of them do much more dangerous things than just make fools of themselves on the Internet. I truly hope that there is such a thing as karma & that they get what is coming to them. I guess that some of them believe that we fat females deserve to die because we have committed the sin of BEING fat females & it is a crime in this culture to be female & ever get over 30 years old or to not look like a centerfold.

Wow, thanks for all the responses! I absolutely agree that the way fat people are treated in the US and elsewhere (I can really only speak about the US, since that’s where I live) needs to change. Being discriminated against in jobs, being refused medical care, or given poor medical care, all of that is horrible and should be protested. (I’m not sure how much can be done about bullying, but that’s another discussion. Suffice to say, kids are mean.)
I wanted to comment on this as an overstatement since I do think those things should be enough to warrant a movement. You should be able to fight for social change just because of those things, and I worry that if people draw the holocaust comparison every time they want change, the standard will become “if it’s not as bad as the holocaust, it’s not worth doing anything about,” and I think that’s a really scary path to walk down. We need to be very clear that social change can and should be fought for for much less than that, that the holocaust should have been the worst we, as a world ever let things get. (Sadly Darfur seems to be going that direction, but apparently as a society we don’t mind too much if dark skinned Muslims slaughter dark skinned Christians in a place far away from us. There’s a tragedy for you…)

As for whether the situation in the US will get to be as bad as rounding fat people up into camps etc, I think the most significant thing you can look at is actually the bill that was proposed in Mississippi. Yes, the fact that someone was bigoted and stupid enough to propose it is upsetting, but once it was proposed, it was resoundingly struck down within a few days. That’s about as fast as you can ever expect anything to be done in politics. Also, other than the idiot who proposed it, I didn’t see anyone speak out in support of the bill (please correct me if I’m wrong there, I didn’t look too carefully) So is there bigotry? Yeah, for sure, and that should be addressed, but there are people who are doing so. The process is working. Maybe it’s not going fast, but from where I’m standing it certainly doesn’t look like a losing battle. A long one, but not a losing one.

Well, you know, there are jokes about the exploding space shuttles, and 9/11 and Columbine. And back in the day, there were bubonic plague and smallpox jokes. Every human tragedy that makes the news gets jokes. I’m not overly bothered by this set; it was totally predictable and not a special deviation from human nature.

I did a search to see if anyone else was making those types of jokes, and aside from the link to SP, and to that “ohgodno” blog, the only thing I found were two self-conscious, tension-easing sort of jokes (amidst genuine discussion) that had nothing to do with bashing anyone. One said “must have been a killer sale. I know, too soon.” And another said “I heard the shooter was enraged that he couldn’t see those 3-D posters, even after bringing a sack lunch.” http://www.bannination.com/comments/5023388?rand=0.980384155395932

I just wonder if maybe the barrage of fat-mockery isn’t really on its way after all. People seem to be treating it pretty much like the tragic event that it is, when they’re aware of it. Or maybe not everyone automatically thinks of fat when they think of a woman’s clothing store (even though it says plus sized – remember we’ve been barraged ceaselessly with the 500-1000lb strawman/woman image so often now that a size 16 doesn’t hardly raise an eyebrow unless you’re MeMemememe.)

Now they’re saying that he made sexual advances before shooting anyone, and may have targeted a woman’s store to avoid confrontation with men. Which could lead to other nasty jokes…or not. If the only mocker is one obscure blog guy who I’d never have heard of otherwise, I’d say maybe I was making too many assumptions or have been a little tiny bit too defensive myself.

Elusis, it’s not “nothing”, it’s just people being arseholes, which human beings seem to be very prone to in all sorts of ways. I usually prefer to ignore the most predictable and ordinary idiots. Others prefer to call them on it, and I can’t say that choice is wrong.

This guy is undoubtedly a fuckwit, but he’s basically a fuckwit that thrives on attention. He got zero comments until he started making equally vile “jokes” about Heath Ledger. I repressed the urge to leave him an angry comment because he clearly doesn’t care what sort of attention he gets as long as he gets it. For that reason, whilst I understand the urge to tell him what you think of him, I think anyone who links to him or comments on his site is playing into his hands.

Well…this is beyond tasteless. But then I received an email forward titled “Memphis Overdose” yesterday with a picture of a photoshopped black man laying on the ground surrounded by watermelons and KFC boxes.

Offensive is offensive. The sad thing is this email was sent to me by my aunt. I am aware that nearly all of my family is racist, sexist, bigoted and just plain dimwitted. Which leads me to believe the vast majority of folks out there are likely the same way.

At any rate, I did leave a comment mentioning that you have to have some intelligence to successfully pull of satire. Obviously, he’s lacking in this department.

And one other thing….one of the commentors on his site mentioned that he’d likely never been on the bad end of discrimination. I’d likely agree. It’s funny not because it’s the truth, but because you’ll likely never be affected negatively by fat shaming, racism, sexism….etc. Must be delightful to be so privilaged and so shallow.

It’s just a shame this kind of thing even goes on in the world. Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time than upset others. Why don’t they just keep their views to themselves? What is their need to be so hostile?
Sad stuff.
Kind regards,http://itsjustaphase.wordpress.com/

Kate, I’m not sure if any of that was because of what I said or not, but I too was waiting for the fat jokes, and I’m only finding that one, obscure thing (as well as its mention here.) Unless there’s more and I’m mercifully being spared by my poor search abilities. Which is of course quite possible. But I’d rather not keep searching for bottom-feeders who find it funny anyway.

To me, for me, that says maybe I personally felt defensive before the fact when it doesn’t turn out to be fact after all. Which I hope it doesn’t.

I was watching an episode of Without a Trace, where this guy is holding people hostage, because he feel he deserves more than a check from the feds, as compensation for his wife dying in 9/11.

At the end they had the detective looking at two pictures in his room. One with the towers standing, and one with the towers gone. It hit me, the whole we really don’t know when we’ll die thing.

While I feel this surely should be depressing the hell out of me, strangely it isn’t. Well, I do take a antidepressant so I guess not that strangely. I feel more like I owe it to the people victimized here to live my life to the fullest. That I can’t waste my life being afraid of some jerk calling me fat, or what other people might assume about my health.

I know it’s easier said than done. I really do feel that I should be doing more, because who knows what will happen. I can stay home and feel safe, but not have lived a life. I just really need to force myself to be out there and experience what life has to offer, for all the people who can’t.

This may be a little off-topic, but it has to do with reactions to the tragic murders. I live in the Chicagoland area. Driving into work this morning, I heard that the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing the funerals of at least two victims. There was no direct comment from the church, but a Tinley Park official speculated that Westboro may be picketing because Lane Bryant is a plus-sized clothing store, and thus transsexuals may shop there.

That ‘church’ obviously consists of attention whores, not unlike the author of the blog listed above. It’s crazy the mental gymnastics people will go through in order to fuel their hatred for others.

I know it’s probably been covered, but Lane Bryant has set up a memorial fund for these beautiful women. I would rather give to that and I hope that anyone with disgusting, immature, horrible websites will be forced to give something for their thoughtless comments. I know that is not going to happen, but they should.

As for Westboro Baptist Church, I think they’ll protest anything sad or decent. They protest funerals of soldiers and wanted to protest Heath Ledgers funeral because of Brokeback Mountain. I’m with Aebhel on this one!

im sorry crossbuster, but how does religion come into this discussion? please don’t crusade for the sake of crusading. are you trying to be deliberately offensive?

There are many people on these blogs who come from all kinds of religious or non-religious backrounds. we’re together here for one reason: the fight against the discrimination against fat (with some feminism chucked in, obviously).

You don’t want to offend monkeys, but you don’t mind offending christians with your icon? Nice.

1. Religion comes into the discussion because it is a mutable quality of human beings that American society does not voraciously ask the individual to change. Being fat is also a mutable quality of which our society constantly asks us to change. My question was basically, what is the difference in the view between the two? Some say fat is unhealthy and they provide “logical” data to support this “fact”. In the days of religious persecution (whichever days you choose, even in today’s world) the main justification of forced religion whether a religion was being forced on people or banned is that it’s “for other’s own good”. Essentially both boil down to lifestyle changes that should be dissected objectively by society so the individual has enough information to make up their own minds.

2. My “cross barred icon” is called the “Crossbuster” and it is a symbol of a band called Bad Religion, my favorite band I might add. Bad Religion and the Crossbuster are >>>NOT<<< anti-Christianity. Browse over a few song lyrics and you’ll find they are a punk band with intelligent social/philosophical/religious/anti-religious commentary.

3. I don’t hate Christians, I judge my hatred/love for people on a purely individual basis. I do hate the ideals of Christianity/Bible though, just as you hate the ideals of sin (I’d imagine).

4. I find it odd that my Crossbuster is “insulting” to you. It is after all a symbol of my personal belief structure and therefore faith. I am an Atheist and very against the ideals (in totality) of all Abrahamic religions as I’ve come to know them. The Crossbuster is no more offensive to you than a regular Cross is to me. How would you feel if I told you that your Cross/Dove/Jesus Fish was offensive to Atheists and specifically me?

5. The Crossbuster is not meant to offend you/Christian’s, it is an expression of myself. I wouldn’t confine myself into solely being an antithesis to something I believe I am larger than. I should be permitted to express myself and my ideals freely without being criticized for it lest I do in a hostile fashion correct?

6. Not once did I attack religion or your religion in particular, I simply asked a question derived from establishing a correlation between two very similar things that are treated very differently in our society therefore exposing the implicit hypocrisy within it.

Crossbuster, at the risk of stating the obvious: images have meanings beyond what you, personally, intend. This is why we can cry foul at images (in advertising, say) that have sexist or racist effects, and it doesn’t make the problem go away when the companies say, “Oh, but we didn’t mean it!”

It’s a bit different with Christianity because Christians have for so long been the privileged class – and of course the history there isn’t innocent – but consider that Kate, fillyjonk and sweetmachine don’t allow trashing thin people here. Why do you suppose that is?

Personally I’m not offended by your icon; it more just makes me tired, because teaching undergraduate theology classes mean I regularly come across freshmen who read one Richard Dawkins book and think that they have some privileged access upon the inherent value of EVERY religion that’s ever existed — usually amounting to some really well-thought-out position like “Religion is bad!” (But of course secular post-enlightenment modernity is not AT ALL historically-conditioned and has NEVER EVER given rise to ANYTHING bad, ever.) Your crossbuster icon reminds me, personally, of discussions that never rise above that level of nuance; which may not be fair to you at all. Maybe you have a more nuanced understanding of the issues involved. But my subjective reaction is as immaterial as your personal circumstances in how you came by that icon. You’re taking a symbol that a lot of people in the world cherish and see as intrinsic to their identity, and putting a circle and a slash around it. That’s what gives it its coherence and meaning — the fact that it essentially represents the sentiment, “Christianity? Nuh-uh. Bad.” And, gee terwillikers, some people get offended. At least have the integrity to admit that that was both foreseeable and the whole point.

You are somewhat correct. If you’ll notice I mention the stifling as well as forcing of religion as a negative. Anti-religious efforts (to be very ambiguous) aren’t completely innocent. My sentiments aren’t exactly fueled by historic conditioning or a passing reading of Richard Dawkins and Philosophy 101, but that’s another conversation altogether.

To be short, me having The Crossbuster(TM!) as my icon is equated to someone wearing a cross around their neck. Do people wear crosses to offend people like me? Absolutely not. Do people who wear crosses care if I am offended by their cross wearing? Probably not. People wear crosses for themselves and/or their faith. In these respects I am no different.

Same for me, I don’t really care that anyone gets offended by my belief’s. I just find it surprising that someone does in this website considering the accepting nature of most of the people here (but perhaps that only applies to being fat?). Either way, insult and offense is far from the “Whole Point”.

If shock were my purpose I definitely wouldn’t be conversing this way with you. I apologize that I remind you of unreasonable people that make shallow points in an effort to promote their pseudo-intellectual agenda. If it makes you feel better those people frustrate me just as much.

I think that I’ve taken up too much of Ms.Hardings comment space with this topic so if any of you want to continue it feel free to E-mail me Luisdesiqueira@gmail.com.

PS – couldn’t find a good place to put this but… I suppose Kate, fillyjonk and sweetmachine don’t allow the thrashing of skinny people for the same reason I’d find the thrashing of Christians reprehensible.

To address your other point, of course men are subject to aesthetic pressures — a fact we’ve covered extensively on this blog. However, there is nothing equivalent to the systemic oppression women suffer for deviating from the beauty ideal, which is held up as the primary purpose of a woman’s existence and which is punishing, expensive, and impossible for most women. If you think saying so is misandrist, you’re not the feminist ally you think you are.

But again, we discuss this kind of thing all the time — but not on this thread, which is about an entirely different topic.